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NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) - General Electric Co. said Friday that it plans to sell or spin off its iconic appliance business that for a century sold refrigerators, air conditioners and ovens for millions of homes.

LOS ANGELES - Faced with drought and a jump in consumption, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has called for cleansing sewage for drinking water and imposing restrictions for watering lawns and washing driveways.

YANGON, Myanmar - The official death toll from Cyclone Nargis has nearly doubled to almost 78,000 and another 56,000 people remain missing two weeks after the devastating storm, state television reported Friday.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - Olympic gold medalist Tim Montgomery's once-celebrated life continued its long downward spiral Friday when a federal judge sentenced the former ''world's fastest man'' to nearly four years in prison for dealing in bad checks.

BAGHDAD - An Iranian Embassy convoy came under fire in Baghdad, wounding two Iranian diplomats and two other staff, a spokesman said Friday. Tehran accused the United States of encouraging attacks against Iranian interests in Iraq.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's army lodged a formal protest Friday to ''allied forces'' in neighboring Afghanistan over a suspected U.S. missile strike this week that killed 14 people in a Pakistani border village.

FRESNO, Calif. - A biochemist was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Friday for killing her estranged husband by knocking him out and stuffing him into a vat of acid, possibly while he was still alive.

SAN ANTONIO - When Texas child welfare authorities released statistics showing nearly 60 percent of the teen girls taken from a polygamist sect's ranch were pregnant or had children, they seemed to prove what was alleged all along: The sect commonly pushed girls into marriage and sex.

It looks as if you'll get off to a great start in the year ahead with the possibilities of finding both a quality social life and many new potential prospects for material gain. Make the most of things while conditions favor you.

DEAR ABBY: I have overbearing in-laws who refuse to let their children, all of whom are in their 40s, live their own lives. We are constantly forced to spend time with them by means of manipulation. We have all been under their thumbs for so long that when the opportunity presented itself for our family to start a new life in a different state, we jumped at the chance.